Activities for Arianespace’s next light-lift Vega flight from the Spaceport are now fully underway following this week’s delivery of the DZZ-HR payload to French Guiana – joining the mission’s launcher, which is well advanced in its preparations.
The high-resolution Earth observation satellite was transported by a Boeing 747 cargo aircraft to Félix Eboué Airport near French Guiana’s capital city of Cayenne, where it was unloaded for transfer by road to the Spaceport.
DZZ-HR was produced by Airbus Defence and Space for the Republic of Kazakhstan’s government. The 900-kg.-class spacecraft will be delivered by Vega into Sun-synchronous orbit, from which it is to provide a complete range of civil applications – including monitoring of natural and agricultural resources, provision of mapping data and support for rescue operations.
This upcoming flight – designated VV03 in Arianespace’s numbering system – will mark the third Vega liftoff from French Guiana to date. Vega’s first launch (VV01) was a qualification mission performed in February 2012, carrying the LARES laser relativity satellite, a small ALMASat-1 technology microsatellite demonstrator and seven CubeSats. It was followed by Flight VV02 in May 2013, which orbited the Proba-V, VNREDSat-1 and ESTCube-1 satellites.
Developed in a European Space Agency program led by Italy’s ASI space agency and industrial prime contractor ELV SpA., Vega was conceived for the orbiting of small- to medium-sized satellites, including institutional and scientific spacecraft.
